Rutgers professor to talk about online copyright

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Provided by Rutgers

Greg Lastowka, a professor of law at Rutgers School of Law-Camden, will explore how various forms of popular creativity intersect with copyright law as part of the MAGIC Speaker Series Dec. 6 at RIT.

The MAGIC Center at Rochester Institute of Technology has created a new lecture series to spark a dialogue around campus about the changing digital world.

MAGIC, RIT’s Center for Media, Arts, Games, Interaction and Creativity, focuses on digital media, providing students, faculty and staff with a space for research and production.

“We are excited to bring new speakers to RIT about once a month to facilitate these lively, cross-disciplinary discussions on the entrepreneurial, educational, social and ethical implications of innovation,” said Evan Selinger, an associate professor of philosophy and MAGIC Center Head of Research Communications, Community and Ethics.

The series’ second talk, “Player-Authors: Video Games, User-Generated Content and Copyright,” will explore how various forms of popular creativity intersect with copyright law. Greg Lastowka, a professor of law at Rutgers School of Law-Camden and a co-director of the Rutgers Institute for Information Policy & Law, will speak from 1 to 2 p.m. Dec. 6 in Student Innovation Hall.

Lastowka is the author of Virtual Justice and teaches in the areas of intellectual property (copyrights, trademarks and patents), Internet law and property law. Through a grant from the National Science Foundation, Lastowka established the first-ever empirical study of copyright and user-generated content on social media platforms, surveying 30 populations, from LittleBigPlanet to Reddit to YouTube. He will address issues surrounding the growing complexities of online authorship and the need for reformed copyright laws.

The series’ inaugural speaker, award-winning New York Times and WIRED Magazine tech writer Clive Thompson, discussed how technology is changing our minds for the better at a talk in late October. Upcoming speakers in the series include entrepreneur Anil Dash in February and new media expert and Fordham University Professor Alice Marwick in March.

“The series will feature leaders from industry, academia and journalism who are creating the next generation of innovative systems and theorizing the profound ways digital innovation impacts society,” said Elizabeth Lawley, Selinger’s co-chair of the series, a professor in RIT’s School of Interactive Games and Media and director of RIT’s Lab for Social Computing.